Note 976 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Letter of Hernando de Soto, and Memoir of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda. [The transcript of the Fontaneda Memoir is marked by Muñoz “as a very good account, although it is by a man who did not understand the art of writing, and therefore many sentences are incomplete. On the margin of the original [at Simancas] are points made by the hand of Herrera, who doubtless drew on this for that part [of his Historia general] about the River Jordan which he says was sought by Ponce de Leon.” This memoir on Florida and its natives was written in Spain about 1575. It is also given in English in French’s Historical Collection of Louisiana (1875), p. 235, from the French of Ternaux; cf. Brinton’s Floridian Peninsula, p. 26. The Editor appends various notes and a comparative statement of the authorities relative to the landing of De Soto and his subsequent movements, and adds a list of the original authorities on De Soto’s expedition and a map of a part of the Floridian peninsula. The authorities are also reviewed by Rye in the Introduction to the Hakluyt Society’s volume. Smith also printed the will of De Soto in the Hist. Mag. (May, 1861), v. 134.—Ed.]